The first Catholic Supreme Court justice was Roger Brooke Taney, whom the Senate confirmed as Chief Justice on March 15, 1836.1Justia. Roger Brooke Taney Court (1836-1864) Appointed by President Andrew Jackson to replace John Marshall, Taney served nearly three decades and remains the only Catholic to have reached the Court before the twentieth century.
How Taney Reached the Court
Taney’s path ran through Andrew Jackson’s war on the Second Bank of the United States. Jackson appointed him Attorney General in 1831, and the two allied against the Bank.2Oyez. Roger B. Taney When Jackson’s Treasury Secretary refused to pull federal deposits, Jackson installed Taney in the role. Over nine months as Acting Treasury Secretary, Taney moved government funds out of the Second Bank and into smaller commercial banks, effectively killing the institution before its charter expired.3U.S. Department of the Treasury. Roger B. Taney
That made him a hero to Jacksonians and a target for the Whigs. The Senate refused to confirm him as Treasury Secretary, and he resigned in 1834.3U.S. Department of the Treasury. Roger B. Taney When Jackson nominated him as an Associate Justice in 1835, the Senate shelved the nomination. After Chief Justice Marshall died later that year, Jackson tried again for the top seat. The political math had shifted, and Taney was confirmed by a vote of 29 to 15.1Justia. Roger Brooke Taney Court (1836-1864)
Why a Catholic Appointment Was Unusual in 1836
The country was overwhelmingly Protestant, and Catholics were widely viewed with suspicion. Nativist groups openly argued that loyalty to the Pope made Catholics unfit for public trust, and that hostility would grow more organized in the following decades with the Know-Nothing movement. His Catholicism was not the only reason Whigs opposed him, but it gave critics an extra line of attack in an era when anti-Catholic sentiment was mainstream rather than fringe. His confirmation reflected the strength of Jackson’s political machine as much as any shift in religious attitudes.
What Taney Did on the Court
Taney’s early tenure established him as a careful jurist willing to narrow the Marshall Court’s broader readings of corporate privilege. In Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837), he held that public charters must be read narrowly and that no exclusive privilege could be implied unless the charter specifically granted one.4Justia. Proprietors of Charles River Bridge v. Proprietors of Warren Bridge The decision freed states to approve competing infrastructure projects without being locked into old monopoly grants.
His legacy, however, was defined by Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). Writing for the majority, Taney held that people of African descent were not citizens under the Constitution and could not sue in federal court.5National Archives. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) The opinion also declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and ruled that enslaved people were property protected by the Fifth Amendment, so no law could deprive an owner of them.6Justia. Dred Scott v. Sandford The ruling is widely regarded as among the worst in the Court’s history. Rather than settling the slavery question, it hardened sectional conflict in the lead-up to the Civil War. It was ultimately overturned by the Thirteenth Amendment and by the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship.
In 1861, Taney issued Ex Parte Merryman, ruling that only Congress, not the president, could suspend the writ of habeas corpus. He grounded the ruling in the fact that the Suspension Clause sits in Article I, which governs legislative powers. President Lincoln effectively ignored it, and military detentions continued, but Taney’s reasoning on the separation of powers has been cited favorably by legal scholars since.
The Informal “Catholic Seat”
Taney served until his death in 1864. In the decades that followed, an informal tradition took hold: when a Catholic justice died or retired, presidents often replaced him with another Catholic. The practice was partly about political representation of a growing Catholic electorate in northern cities, and partly about signaling inclusion during periods of heavy immigration.
No law required it, and presidents did not always follow it, but the pattern was real enough that Justice William Brennan acknowledged it himself. In a 1985 interview, Brennan said his was a “Catholic seat” and that members of the Eisenhower administration had checked with his priest to confirm he was “a good Catholic” before his nomination moved forward. The tradition faded as the number of Catholic appointments grew, which made the idea of a single reserved seat meaningless.
Catholic Justices After Taney
The next Catholic to reach the Court was Edward Douglass White, appointed as an Associate Justice by President Grover Cleveland in 1894 and elevated to Chief Justice in 1910, making him the second Catholic to hold that title.7Oyez. Edward D. White Joseph McKenna, the son of an Irish immigrant, followed in 1898 under President William McKinley. Pierce Butler joined the Court in 1923 under President Warren Harding and was, for a stretch, its only Catholic member.8Oyez. Pierce Butler When Butler died in 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt replaced him with Frank Murphy, another Catholic.9Oyez. Frank Murphy
Brennan’s appointment by President Eisenhower in 1956 began a long and influential tenure that stretched past three decades. Antonin Scalia’s confirmation in 1986 marked the practical end of the single-seat concept, because for the first time in generations, two Catholics served simultaneously. Anthony Kennedy joined in 1988, and Clarence Thomas in 1991.
Catholic Representation on the Court Today
The modern Court has more Catholic members than at any point in its history. As of 2026, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all identify as Catholic. Neil Gorsuch was raised Catholic but now attends an Episcopal church, so his classification is debated.
The shift happened quietly. When Barrett was nominated in 2020, her Catholic faith drew some media attention, but neither party made it a central issue during the confirmation hearings. What once required an informal tradition to preserve now occurs through the ordinary appointment process, a long distance from the climate Taney faced in 1836.